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People across Pakistan, especially school children, continued to offer special prayers for Malala’s recovery.

… Because prayer is one way of saying “I wish I could help but only if it entails not actually helping or even really doing anything.” Praying to Malala’s doctors would make more sense since they had nothing to do with her getting hurt in the first place and had no power to stop it happening, though they’re trying to actually help now that god stood by with folded arms and let a 14 year-old-girl catch a bullet fired by one of his believers.

The following is a copy of part of a post I left on http://www.jesusandmo.net/2012/10/10/again2/ , partly in response to some rather patronising accusations – by a user claiming to be atheist – that the atheist community basically rubbed their collective hands in glee at the shooting – it gave us (according to him) a chance to be all smug and superior, and reminding us that the god we were spitting on is Malala’s god too yadda yadda yadda (honestly, have a look, it’s incredible). But it also documents my hopes for the future of this young girl, which is the part relevant to her increasingly excellent recovery.

Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that there is nothing quite like surviving a dance with the Reaper to focus one’s mind, and I have a feeling that one day soon that little girl will be joining us in spitting on her god. Granted, she might just spend the rest of her days thanking Allah for saving her life, or she might be cowed into submission by her ordeal, but I sincerely hope not. She’s obviously an intelligent person, and if she pulls through with no brain damage to hinder her (and, of couse, failure by the ever-so brave Taliban to follow through on their oath to finish her off), she will quite possibly start wondering why the god that saved her life also allowed hundreds, if not thousands of other innocent young women to die – in her own short lifetime alone – for ‘crimes’ against Islam no more petty and harmless than hers; a question which has a very limited scope of rational answers.
Starfeesh, this is not a smug atheist thinking that being shot in the head could be the best thing that ever happened to the girl if it turns her away from Islam, this is a man constantly stunned and horrified at the lengths some people will go to to perpetuate their myths, and humbled by the incredible bravery shown by little Malala and these people like like her.